Despite being one of English literature’s foremost authors, DH Lawrence’s reputation has been sullied and his works ridiculed for their treatment of love and sex.

To his detractors, Lawrence has been described as a woman-hater, a racist − and even a pornographer.

But fans of his writing applaud his search for freedom and his daring. British poet Simon Armitage compares reading Lawrence to: "watching somebody doing open-heart surgery on themselves… You don’t know where to look."

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